21 comments:

5- You find yourself at 2:00am on one side of a loooong road with 500m clear visibility on both directions (Needless to say there is no single car arround). You want to get to the other side but the traffic light for pedestrians is red. What do you do?.

A- You write a text-message to inform that you're going to be home 45 seconds later than expected and remain there until the light gets green.

I’m somewhat ashamed to report I only scored 24 out of 33 . It also said I should have no problem in obtaining a passport. I suspect they must be lowering their standards:-) All the history ones I got right, all but one of the geography, the constitution and law stuff and of course the Easter question. The flag thing did me in along with one capital question and a couple of the numerical EU ones and I’m sorry to report I didn’t know your first modern leader either. The one that really stumped me was that zero hour question. Oh yes, I still don’t understand that until you are fourteen question where your parents can decide on whether you study religion or not. Does that mean before you don’t have to study it and after you must what; and what’s the significance anyway?

I also suspect the test would be issued in German so I couldn’t in that case read the questions let alone answer them. I guess then I stuck being a Canuck eh:-)

Bee, what flag colors did you first guess? I guessed black and gold, as a pure guess ... which was wrong. Then I thought about the colors of the remaining three choices and guessed the one with green correctly.

I wonder if people are subconsciously influenced to pick the black and gold color for the flag, since on the web page with the questions, the picture of the Muslim girls is flashed over 60 times before getting to the flag-color question, and so the photo of the four girls all dressed in black and all waving orange-yellow and black flags is subliminally flashed into the brain over 60 times.

Why don't I know that? Well, I just don't. It could mean all kinds of things, three quarters before eight, three quarters after eight, or three quarters of the eight hour, I am never sure what people mean (and then they come at eight). It's just an expression that nobody I know ever used and so I find it confusing. As far as I am concerned 3/4 8 is 6 ;-)

Yes, it was mainly the Montagsdemos but very likely somebody shouted it also in November. I can't really recall it either, I was in England with an exchange program at that time, the only thing they reported on was BSE.

Hi William,

Something with blue in it I think, it was a mere guess. I have no clue what the state flag looks like. I also don't know what it's good for knowing admittedly. Best,

If you've grown up in a "viertel nach sieben/viertel vor acht" region (as I have), it's no surprise that you have trouble interpreting the "dreiviertel acht", since it could mean equally well "three quarters of the hour to eight", or "three quarters of an hour before eight".

Interesting test, and I'm ashamed to have scored only 28/33 (after 12 years in a German school and a year living in Germany, I ought to know better).

One think that shocked me despite not being such a surprise, was that all history questions had to do with events after 1933. I always complained about that in school, at "Deutschlandskunde" lessons, or when the "Scala" (a magazine sent by the German government) arrived: official Germany seems to forget that there were quite a few interesting humans and events in the centuries before 1933.

my nan was Born in Hasselfelde East Germany in the Harz district she left just before the russians occupied Eastern Germany...i would really love to live in Germany for the rest of mylife even if i had to do 10 years or so in the army (i am 17) i wanted to know if it would be hard for me to get a citizenship